Honest Questions: Authority of Scripture

[00:00:00] On any given Sunday, if you are here, what just happened will happen. The lights will come on and then somebody up here that's really good looking like me will come on. Just kidding, will come out here and we will open up the scriptures and we'll pay very careful attention to what the scriptures say. [00:00:24] Because we believe that this book has authority over our life. [00:00:31] That's what we believe. Here's what the Bible says about the scripture, which we believe to be true. We believe that all scripture, old and New Testament. We believe that all scripture is God breathed, meaning it is the exhaling of God. It is God's voice to us. He actually wants to talk to us. [00:00:52] We believe that the scripture is useful, that it's actually helpful to us in this life. For us to know how are we to relate to God in this life? How are we to relate to each other in this life. We think it is very practical and helpful. [00:01:09] But we also believe that it is authoritative in our life, that it is meant to teach us. [00:01:17] It's to tell us what's right. It is meant to rebuke us, to tell us what's not right. [00:01:25] The scripture is intended to correct us, meaning to help us get right when we get off the right path. And it's meant to train us. [00:01:37] It's to show us how to grow right. [00:01:41] What is our next step in following Jesus. That's what we believe about this book. That's why we pay very, very careful attention to it. [00:01:53] Why, why would we do that? Why would we give that kind of authority over our life to some ancient book? [00:02:05] Because some of you, you've heard objections about this book, have you not? [00:02:11] That this book, the events in that book were written so far after the actual events that we can't know for sure whether it's reliable or not. There are so many contradictions in the Bible. How can it be trusted? [00:02:25] The Bible's written more as kind of a myth or a legend. It's got some good things in it, but it's got some bad things in it. Good things we should probably listen to, but some things that we should not let be authoritative over our life. [00:02:42] Besides, there's science. [00:02:44] Science has disproved so much of the Bible and the Bible. People that hold up the Bible have done so much harm at different times throughout this world's history. And then there's the moral values of the Bible. There's. They are so outdated, there's no reason for us to trust them. [00:03:07] That book, it is anti woman, it's anti science. It's pro Slavery, it is pro violence. [00:03:15] Why would we trust a book like that? [00:03:18] And since you can make the Bible really kind of say anything that you want it to, why would we really trust the Bible? Because it's all just subjective opinion. [00:03:30] If you've heard those things, maybe you look at this book and it creates doubts in your mind. And that's why we want to have an honest conversation today. Because some of you just say, the Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it. [00:03:44] But maybe there's some people out there that, you know, it doesn't settle it for me. I actually have some questions. And we want to be able to ask some honest questions today because I imagine that there is a spectrum of people in this room. [00:03:59] On one side, there are people that are incredibly skeptical about the Bible. And that makes this a really interesting Sunday to any time to come and listen to the authoritative teaching of a Bible and say that that should have authority over my life. [00:04:16] But there's also people in this room that would say, I believe in the authority of the Bible. [00:04:21] But do you actually live your life as if the Bible is the authority in your life? [00:04:27] I'm going to say this. This was probably one of the most difficult sermons that I've prepared in a long time. And part of it, the biggest piece of it, was because I had so much that I wanted to say about this to help you understand why the Bible is authoritative in our life. [00:04:45] But here's what I've decided. I want to just give you a. A logical inquiry to start to think about. If you are skeptical, where to start with your inquiry, where can you start to ask some questions? And if maybe you're at a place where the Bible is your authority, are you living your life in a way that it is the actual authority of your life? And I'm just gonna say this up front. For this sermon to be helpful to you, you're gonna have to do some homework on your own. I'm gonna give you some resources, but I'm not going to be able to give everything that you need today. I just want to let you know that up front. [00:05:21] But here's where I want to start our inquiry. Why do we believe that this document is God breathed that this is the voice of God to us. And here's where I'm going to start. I'm going to start with this question. Can we trust the reliability of the New Testament documents? [00:05:41] Why would I start with the New Testament documents? And when I say the New Testament documents, I'm talking about the record that we have related to the life, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus. Is that reliable? And here's why this is so important. [00:05:57] Because the Bible would tell you itself that if the resurrection of Jesus is not a reliable event in human history, then our faith doesn't make sense at all. It is the fulcrum on which all of our faith rests. Or not. [00:06:17] Paul in one of the earliest New Testament letters, and just to give you a little bit of context, well, he did not start out as a follower of Jesus. In fact, he was trying to squash Christianity. He was killing Christians until he had an encounter with the resurrected Christ. [00:06:40] And here's what he said, here's what he wrote. In one of the earliest New Testament books, It says, in 1st Corinthians 15, it says, and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is our faith. [00:06:56] More than that, we. We are then found to be false witnesses about God. For we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. He said, this is what I'm saying. [00:07:10] But he did not raise him if, in fact, the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. [00:07:18] And if Christ has not been raised, hear this, friends. [00:07:22] Your faith is futile. [00:07:27] You are still in your sins. [00:07:29] Then those who have fallen asleep, meaning those who have died in Christ, are lost. [00:07:36] If only for this life, we have hope in Christ. [00:07:40] We are, of all people, most to be pitied. [00:07:46] That's why can we trust the reliability of the New Testament documents as it relates to the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus? Because if you can dispr prove that, you don't have to disprove anything else. This is a sham and we are all wasting our time. [00:08:02] Skeptics know this too. [00:08:05] That's why when they seek to disprove Christianity, this is where they start. [00:08:10] The resurrection of Jesus, the accounts of his resurrection. [00:08:15] One of those famous skeptics, Sir William Ramsey, he was an archeologist. He wanted to disprove Christ, Christianity. So he took a specific angle. He wanted to attack the life and the teaching of Luke. [00:08:29] Luke took on himself the role of a historian. That's what he talks about in his book, the Book of Luke, which is his account of the eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus and his account of the early church, which we call the Book of Acts. And here's why Sir William Ramsay went after him. Because in so many places in Luke's writing, he gives specific dates, specific names, specific places. He tells it as history. [00:08:59] And so Sir William Ramsay Realized like I'm going to go after all of these specifics because I will be able to discredit him. [00:09:08] 30 years. [00:09:10] 30 years. This skeptic studied searched Doug. [00:09:16] Here was his conclusion after 30 years. [00:09:20] Luke is a historian of the first rank. [00:09:24] This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians. [00:09:31] The truth is people that actually try to step in and try to understand the reliability of these New Testament documents, these skeptics become experts, advocates because they do their homework and they look at it and see this is very reasonable and believable. And many of them, it changes their life. Because this book that we read, it is not just a fairy tale. It is a book that is leveraged and rooted in human history. [00:10:02] But you might even be saying, like Bobby, you're using the Bible to prove the Bible. But friends, when you do your homework, and I'm gonna give you a way to do that. There are many secular historical documents outside of the New Testament. More than 39 outside resources that confirm hundred plus events around the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection and the teaching of Jesus. [00:10:30] There is reason to trust the New Testament. [00:10:35] In the New Testament again, internally it tells us that it was written, it was written by eyewitnesses of the events. [00:10:45] The gospel writer John, 1st John 1:1. It says that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched. [00:10:58] This is what we proclaim concerning the word of life and the word of life. He's referring to Jesus. This is what we tell about Jesus. What we've seen and heard and touched. [00:11:10] And why is this important? [00:11:12] Because scholarship will tell us. Some people want to say there was all these things were written down so much later scholarship will tell us between the mid 1st century, about 50 AD and late 1st century is when we have all of the New Testament documents. [00:11:27] There is early writing people that well, lived within the time of the life of Jesus and had access to those who had eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. There is not this late dating of the New Testament documents. [00:11:43] But some people will say maybe even if we had the documents, the Bible's been translated so many times over the years that we really have no confidence that we really know what those original manuscripts were trying to communicate. [00:12:00] Friends, it's just not true. Sometimes I'd listen to people tell me the way they think the Bible came to us is like the telephone game. [00:12:07] Maybe, yeah, maybe John and the apostles, maybe they were the original eyewitnesses, but they told Somebody who told somebody who told somebody. That is not how we get the New Testament of the Bible. We have, we have manuscripts, lots and lots of manuscripts of these eyewitnesses. And here's what we know. Any good translation of the Bible goes back to those. Not originals, but those historical manuscripts. [00:12:36] And here's the idea, friends, textual criticism, which is kind of the science, the actual science of like, how do we try to recreate an ancient document? What it takes to be accurate with what you have in an ancient document is that you have to have lots of manuscripts, friends. The manuscript evidence of the New Testament is overwhelming. There are nearly 6,000 manuscripts related to. So they're able to look at and compare all the different manuscripts and. Yes. Are there what they call variants? Absolutely. [00:13:12] There are spelling mistakes, there are words that are mixed up in there. But when they have all these documents, they're able to look at and compare and be able to see what do we believe was the original. We don't have the originals, what they call the autographs. But with that overwhelming evidence, we have good reason to believe that we know what the words were that were intended to be communicated in the New Testament of the Bible. Incredible manuscript evidence. [00:13:41] And I actually talked about this a little bit last week in the Sermon on Doubt. [00:13:46] One of the things that is incredibly interesting about the writing of the New Testament of the Bible, and I would say the Bible as a whole, is its incredible honesty. [00:13:58] How does it, how do the authors actually write even about themselves? [00:14:04] How do the authors of the Bible write about the key characters, the key influencers, the key heroes of the Bible? [00:14:14] What you will see is they are incredibly honest, even about the ethical and the moral failures of the key characters of the Bible. [00:14:25] If you're just writing a myth and a legend that you hope that people will believe one day, you would at least write yourself to sound credible. [00:14:37] But they sound like broken people. [00:14:41] Why would they communicate that? [00:14:44] Because that's what's true. [00:14:46] That's what they saw. They were broken people. [00:14:51] And that's what we see specifically with the New Testament. [00:14:55] Those that wrote the New Testament down, they were doubters, they were deniers, deserters, ran from Jesus. [00:15:07] But here's what happened. [00:15:10] These confused cowards became courageous carriers of a message. [00:15:20] Why? [00:15:22] Because they had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus and they wrote about it, they talked about it. [00:15:31] And friends, this is why, when we look back to the first century, we see the explosion of the church. [00:15:39] Why? [00:15:40] Because people saw and experienced something that changed their life. They weren't trying to just make something up to make themselves feel feel better. [00:15:48] Something happened. Here's how the Apostle Paul described what happened again in First Corinthians 15, one of the earliest New Testament books, Paul says this for what I received, I passed on to you as a first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. [00:16:10] And then Paul tells us this and that he appeared to Cephas, that's Peter. And then to the 12. [00:16:18] After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living. [00:16:29] Why would Paul write that in one of the earliest New Testament books? [00:16:33] He's saying, yeah, we saw this, and you can go verify it. These people are still living. Ask them, ask them what they saw. [00:16:44] And friends, that's why we saw the explosion of the church. Because what these eyewitnesses saw, and now the Jews and the Romans, they were doing everything they could to try to stamp out Christianity, to try to snuff it out. Killing them, persecuting them. [00:17:03] All they needed to do in those early weeks as this message was exploding, was show the body, show everyone the dead body of Jesus. [00:17:17] But there was a problem that they had. [00:17:20] Jesus was using it. [00:17:22] He was using his dead body because it was alive. And when people saw, changed their life. [00:17:32] Now I realize, and I'm gonna say this, maybe you're just sitting there like, not any one of the things that I've tried to communicate, communicate about why we believe that the New Testament is reliable, is convincing to you. [00:17:43] But here's what I would say. If you want to be a skeptic, if you want to be a doubter, you've got to come up with a plausible solution for those what happened. [00:17:55] Why do we put our trust. I believe that there is good reason that this book related into the New Testament is reliable in terms of what it communicates about, about Jesus and his resurrection. [00:18:10] You might say, okay, Bob, you're talking about one little small portion of the. There is a lot more Bible than just that. You're just talking about a part of the New Testament. What about all the things in the Old Testament? What would make those reliable and trustworthy? Now, I just want to say, if in your mind you've concluded that Jesus was who he claimed to be, that he was the son of God, that he did raise from the dead, then the accounts of what he communicated would matter to us, would it not? [00:18:44] And he gives us reason to trust the reliability of the Old Testament documents. [00:18:51] He saw them as authoritative Jesus in his life and ministry. In the New Testament, he taught that the Old Testament was the inspired word of God. [00:19:03] He quoted from it, quoted from it often, and in every case, he upheld the authority, the accuracy and the trustworthiness of the Old Testament documents. [00:19:18] If Jesus needed to, he could have corrected anything that was wrong with the Old Testament. But he never did this. He always held up the authority. [00:19:29] Now hear me. He did correct wrong interpretation of the Old Testament. He did that all the time. Those who were teaching, those who were the religious leaders, had missed the point of much of it. [00:19:42] The documents were reliable, but their interpretation of it was not reliable. But Jesus was confident in the Old Testament documents. [00:19:52] The things that the Old Testament taught in terms of history, he proclaimed as history. The things that were prophetic, the prophecy he proclaimed as prophetic. In the teaching sections of the Old Testament, Jesus taught as worthy of trust. [00:20:11] And Jesus, even more than that, he helped us understand that all of the Scripture actually is one story that points to him. [00:20:24] He is the centerpiece of all of Scripture. [00:20:28] Here's how the historian Luke shared it of what Jesus said in Luke 24:44, Jesus said to them, he said, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything, everything, all things must be fulfilled. That is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. And when you say the law, the prophet and the Psalms, that's the shorthand way of saying all of the Old Testament. Everything from creation to the fall, to the story of God moving through the nation of Israel, to this redemption story in and around Jesus, to the restoration when ultimately the kingdom of God will be established again the way he intended it. All of that points to Jesus. Everything in the Scriptures points to Jesus. [00:21:26] Jesus had confidence in the Old Testament and we can have confidence in the Old Testament. [00:21:32] And what's amazing is that there's this incredible unity and continuity in this whole book. Oftentimes we refer to it as a book, but that's not exactly true. This isn't a book. This is actually 66 books written by around 40 authors, written in different countries over 1500 years that talks about hundreds and hundreds of topics, but yet all of that put together, there is a unifying theme of Jesus. [00:22:14] Everything points to him. [00:22:17] How did that work? [00:22:20] Was that accidental, incidental? [00:22:25] Or was it intentional? [00:22:27] And maybe I would even say supernatural? [00:22:31] Because there is one storyteller telling the story from beginning to end of Jesus. [00:22:41] And I want to highlight one piece of that continuity that we can't just skip over the whole area of Bible prophecy related from the Old Testament to the New Testament. [00:22:51] The hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament speaking to the coming Messiah, what would be true of that person when they showed up on the scene? [00:23:03] Hundreds of prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. [00:23:08] The odds of that happening are staggering. I want to give you just one place to even just start thinking about that. Just a little bit of homework. [00:23:18] Go back to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah, chapter 53, where Isaiah is speaking about the suffering Messiah. Read that text, read all of Isaiah, chapter 53 and at the same time be thinking in your mind about the reality of the crucifixion of Jesus. [00:23:35] Was that what Isaiah was talking about? The comparison is staggering. He is telling this hundreds of years before Jesus shows up on the scene. And friends, listen to this. [00:23:50] He's telling this hundreds of years before the Roman crucifixion was even invented. [00:23:59] What makes that true? [00:24:02] Many people, this is, it's just convincing beyond belief. We can trust the things that even in the Old Testament we believe this document is God's breath, His word to us and friends, we believe that it is useful. [00:24:24] It is useful in our lives. [00:24:29] But here's the question that I have. [00:24:31] If it's to be useful, do you know how to read and understand the Bible? [00:24:38] I'm just going to say this. It is not a trivial endeavor to try to take this document and understand everything inside of it. It is incredibly difficult. [00:24:50] Here's what the Bible says about itself and if it's to be authoritative in our life. This is what needs to be true. This is what we need to believe. [00:24:59] The writer in Hebrews says this. Hebrews 4:12. It says for the word of God it is alive and active. [00:25:08] It is sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. [00:25:23] Some of you know this, that have spent time in the Bible. The Bible can be convicting, it can be enlightening. It does something. [00:25:31] As we engage the Scriptures, what the writer of Hebrews is trying to say is it's not just that we read the Bible, but the Bible actually reads us in a supernatural way. It speaks to us individually, but it only does that, friends, if we read it, if we actually take the time to try to read and understand and know what God has said to us. [00:26:02] It was recently I was having a conversation with someone, not someone that attends our church, but they were talking about the kind of church that they want to go to. As we sat there he was kind of pounding the table and he's like, I want a church that when I show up, they give me the Bible, the Bible, the Bible. [00:26:19] And I'm just thinking, amen, preach it, brother. Absolutely. It's all about the Bible. If that's God's word to us. [00:26:28] About 10 or 15 minutes later in the conversation, he says this. [00:26:34] I don't even know if I could tell you the last time I opened my Bible, There was just something in me. Like my heart just kind of sank. It's like, what? Like, what do I say? Does he see the disconnect there? [00:26:50] I'm not saying this to try to disparage someone. [00:26:55] I'm trying to say that I don't think he's an anomaly. [00:26:58] I think there's a lot of us that would say, I believe the Bible, the Bible, the Bible. [00:27:03] But we actually spend little or no time engaging the Bible in our life. [00:27:11] And because I love you, and I didn't feel like I could say this to him because I didn't know if I had the relational equity to say it. But I want to say it to you because I love and I want to be your pastor. That is foolish. [00:27:22] That is foolishness to try to say Bible is authoritative and not read it. If it's the voice of God to us, get in it. [00:27:32] Let him speak. Let him change our lives from the inside out. [00:27:38] This is what I think the Bible is like for a lot of people. It's like this. [00:27:42] It's like an Apple license agreement. [00:27:47] Every one of you have read and studied and memorized that, right? [00:27:51] No. You know, you just scroll through it and you hit agree at the bottom and think that you've done something. [00:27:59] Friends, we can't treat the words of God like that. [00:28:04] It's not an Apple license agreement. [00:28:07] It's God's voice to us. [00:28:11] If the Bible is to be an authority in our life, we've got to be in the book, learning how to study it. Learning how to study it. Well, and I'm gonna say it, and I'll say it again, that is challenging. It is not easy and simplistic. I wanna give you a resource, if you wanna begin to think a little bit more, like, how do I engage the Bible? I wanna give you this resource, a book by Dan Kimball called How not to Read the Bible. I think it is a great place to start to understand how do I engage the Bible and even try to engage some of the challenging objections that people have to the Bible. If you want an honest inquiry, at least start there. [00:28:59] But here's what I believe is the ultimate test to whether the Bible is your authority. [00:29:07] And it's this. [00:29:09] Do I choose? [00:29:11] Do I choose to do to do what the Bible says to me, what God says to me from the Bible? [00:29:21] Do I choose to do it? [00:29:24] Do I allow it to be an authority that's willing to teach me, that's willing to rebuke me, correct me and train me in righteousness? [00:29:34] That's the watershed issue. It's not do I read and do I know? Do I do what the Bible says? [00:29:43] This is what Jesus said in his words in the New Testament, Matthew, chapter seven, the end of his Sermon on the Mount, one of his greatest sermons. But he says it's not just about hearing this, it's about what. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice, meaning you actually do it, is like a wise man who built his house on the rock, Jesus saying, if you're going to be wise, you need to be in the Scripture, in hearing, hear from God, what is it that you're saying to me? [00:30:23] But it doesn't stop there. We ask the question, God, what do you want me to do? [00:30:31] That's where wisdom comes do applying the Scripture to us. [00:30:38] I love what Mark Twain said. Mark Twain, not a follower of Jesus, but he said this. [00:30:44] It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me. [00:30:49] It is the parts that I do understand, friends. [00:30:56] Not a follower of Jesus, but I think there's some wisdom there. [00:30:59] This is what Mark Twain is saying is like, there's things that are confusing about the Bible, but there's also some things that are crystal clear. [00:31:09] What are you doing with those things you can figure out over time. You can learn and study and grow and understand more of the Bible. What are you doing with the crystal clear things that you know that the Bible is saying to you, the things that the Bible is clearly telling you to do. [00:31:28] Here's what I think is true, friends. [00:31:31] Sometimes I think people that are skeptical about the Bible, and I would even go so far as to say sometimes Christians who don't obey the Bible, this questioning the authority of Scripture is more of a smokescreen. [00:31:45] It's more of a smokescreen because what we really want is we want our own authority. [00:31:52] Honestly. We really just want to do what we want to do. We want to create some kind of confusion out here that gives us justification in our life to not do the things that God would be asking us to do. [00:32:06] The ultimate test in your life, if the Bible Is your authority is. Do you do what it says? [00:32:16] Here's what I'd want. We're calling this series Honest. So let's just be honest. What are those things in the Bible right now that you know? Maybe there's things that you don't know, things that are confusing. What are the things in the Bible right now that you know that God wants you to do and you're not doing it, or you're struggling to do it? [00:32:37] Here's what I would say. [00:32:39] If in a matter of moments you can't come up with anything in your mind, you're not reading the book. [00:32:48] Because when I read, like, I just started to think about that. It's just. It's, like overwhelming when you read this and it's living and active, and it starts to cut in your life, separating soul and spirit, joints and marrow. When it starts to do that, you see it and you know it. And this picture of what is right, what God wants in my life, they're divergent. And trying to pull those together, it's challenging. [00:33:14] What is it for you? Are you doing what the Bible says? [00:33:20] It's the ultimate, ultimate test of authority. [00:33:25] Because you can say, I want the Bible. The Bible, the Bible. [00:33:29] Are you loving your enemies? [00:33:32] You can say, I want the Bible. The Bible, the Bible. [00:33:36] Are you conforming your sexuality around God's parameters? One man, one woman, in the context of a married, committed relationship? But it's not even just that. It's what's happening in our mind. [00:33:52] Are things in our mind. Is our sexual life pure? Just with our mind? Those things are challenging, tough to do. [00:34:02] The things that the Bible teaches about generosity, it's so clear. Is my life filled with generosity, where I'm giving of my life and my resources to help build the kingdom of God and to help the poor and the vulnerable? And in the places where I live, are those things true of my life? I could go on for days. [00:34:23] All you need to do is start reading the book and asking yourself, am I willing to do what the Bible tells me to do? [00:34:34] And, friends, there's a reason that I started with this topic as the first topic in this series that we're calling honestly. [00:34:45] And the reason is this. [00:34:47] The rest of the time we're gonna be looking at, what does this book have to say about a lot of these other topics that create questions. [00:34:56] But we've gotta start like, do we find this book trustworthy? [00:35:00] Do we find it authoritative in our life? [00:35:06] Here's your assignment. [00:35:08] Here's what I wanna ask you to do. [00:35:11] If you're in that place where you're incredibly skeptical about the Bible. [00:35:18] I want to give you another resource to look at. [00:35:21] I think it's a great resource. It's a book called the Case for Christ. There's a picture of it here on the left. Written by Lee Strobel, an award winning author. [00:35:31] This book was written because his wife became a Christian. [00:35:36] He was convinced that she'd gotten herself tied up in a cult. [00:35:40] And so this investigative journalist spent years investigating the claims of Jesus in and around the New Testament, reliability in and around the resurrection. And he changed his life. It changed his life. Read that and listen to the conclusions that someone that came from a very skeptical point of view came to believe. [00:36:02] And I want to show the other book again, how not to read the Bible. [00:36:09] If you want to just learn, just some training wheel steps on how do we engage this book, that even though I'm, I believe absolutely it is reliable. There's a complexity to it. There are certain things that are very, very simple, but certain things that are complex. [00:36:25] How not to read the Bible. [00:36:31] Like I said, this was one of the most difficult sermons for me record. There's, there's so much out there. [00:36:39] If you're doubting and you want to be honest, you, you can look, you can see it. [00:36:46] But if I could share one last thing, this might be the most convincing to me. It might not be convincing to you, but it's convincing to me. [00:36:55] Jesus and this book changed my life. [00:37:00] My life was heading in a very, very different direction. [00:37:04] And when I actually began to read and become convinced that Jesus was who he claimed to be, and began to, just as a young man, do the very best I could to try to apply these things to my life. And I'm so far from where I need to be. [00:37:19] It changed my life. [00:37:23] And there are hundreds, thousands, millions, even billions of people worldwide that would tell you the same thing. [00:37:30] It changed my life. [00:37:33] If you're doubting, if you have honest questions, engage it. [00:37:40] There's reasons to believe that this book is reliable. [00:37:44] There's reasons to believe that we can place it over our life as authority in our life. [00:37:52] And we will always believe around here that all scripture, all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training and righteousness. [00:38:10] Let's get into the book and let God speak. [00:38:14] Pray. [00:38:25] Jesus, I believe with everything in me that you are who you claim to be. [00:38:32] I trust you. [00:38:34] I trust your word. [00:38:37] But Jesus, I also know that not everybody is convinced. [00:38:43] I know that the Holy Spirit is real and can move in hearts and lives, Jesus, your spirit can change people's lives. I ask you to do it, Jesus. Change people's hearts and lives. Open their hearts and their minds. [00:38:59] Lead them. [00:39:01] Lead them to understand that you are speaking. [00:39:04] You are speaking through your word, Jesus. We trust you. [00:39:11] And it's in your powerful and risen name that we trust your word and all God's people said amen.